November 23, 1944
by Settiai
Summary: On Thanksgiving Day, one of the POWs at Stalag 13 thinks about what he still has to be thankful for.


Title: November 23, 1944  
  
Author: Settiai 

Disclaimer: "Hogan's Heroes" and other related characters are not properties of myself. No infringement is intended. This story, such as it is, was written as a sign of respect and love for the characters, the show, and their creator. I claim no ownership of the aforementioned show and characters.

Rating: G

Summary: On Thanksgiving Day, one of the POWs at Stalag 13 thinks about what he still has to be thankful for.

Feedback: Comments and helpful criticisms are always appreciated.

E-mail: lynn_foster@settiai.com

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Thanksgiving... 

Until I came to this place I never considered it to be a real holiday. Sure, people got out of work for it, but it never actually seemed important. Thanksgiving was just a day set aside to stuff yourself with turkey and watch football. Or in my case, blow up the basement of my parents' house while trying to do an experiment in my makeshift lab. Of course, we would always let the firemen have some of the turkey that was left over. 

I never really was that thankful for anything I had.

In this place though, it seems so different. For once, I actually have something to be thankful for. Actually, I have several things to be thankful for. The fact that I'm still alive is one of them. Especially with some of the missions that we've done in the last few months.

Of course, I probably wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for the second thing that I'm thankful for. Until I came to this place, I never really had any true friends. So, I guess that I'm pretty thankful for all of them. 

Colonel Hogan... Without him, who knows where we'd be. Probably buried under about six feet of dirt. 

Kinch... What would we do without him? He's one of the only people who can actually run the radio without it blowing up in his face. ... I'm still not sure what LeBeau did to make it blow up on him. 

Newkirk... He's still, at times, a mystery to me. One moment he's ready to kill me, and the next he's saving my neck from getting shot. Still, our team wouldn't be complete without him. ... The fact that he's the only one of us who can wear a dress and actually fool Krauts into thinking that he's a woman might have something to do with that though. 

LeBeau... If he hadn't been here, we'd probably have starved to death a long tome ago. ... Except for Newkirk, of course. For some reason he won't touch anything that LeBeau cooks. Maybe it has something to do with the time that Louis kept telling him that Escargot was a type of bird, until **_after_** he had eaten some. Not to mention that we wouldn't have pulled off a lot of things without his bribing someone or another. Usually our resident Sergeant of the Guards... 

That reminds me of two more people that I'm thankful for... Klink and Shultz. What were the odds that someone like Klink would be the Kommandant of Stalag 13? If he hadn't been in charge, it probably would have been impossible to pull off even a fourth of what we do. 

And Shultz... What other Kraut would ignore almost everything he hears and sees? Of course, the fact that he'll never go hungry as long as we're here for him to steal food from might be part of it.

Some things are a crucial part of the holiday though. Believe it or not, but we're still celebrating Thanksgiving the same way as back in the States. Even the people who aren't Americans, like LeBeau and Newkirk, are joining in. We're having a football game later today between several of the Barracks. After that, LeBeau is cooking a **_huge_** turkey dinner for Barracks Two. Even Newkirk is planning on eating some. Of course, he'll let some other people eat first. If they don't die, then he'll try some. Shultz isn't even going to ask where we got the bird, as long as he gets a drumstick.

So, I guess that Thanksgiving still is about stuffing yourself with turkey and watching football. It's a lot more than that though. At least while I'm still here. Of course, there are some things that I really miss about Thanksgiving back at home. 

That lab in my parents' basement, for example.


End file.
